


The biggest fucking present

by Lecterism



Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: First half is a bit comical, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Nigel hasn't been married, Spacedogs Appreciation Week, Valentine's Day, no fucking need to fucking say there's fucking cussing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 12:29:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6006093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lecterism/pseuds/Lecterism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nigel struggles to find Valentine's day presents for his darling but Adam fucking Raki makes everything worthy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The biggest fucking present

**Author's Note:**

> Literally wanted to do a short drabble for Spacedogs appreciation week but then one thing lead to the other and I had no choice but to surrender to these two.  
> It's my first work having to do with Spacedogs and I confess to have written it lightheartedly. It's the only way I think I'm ready to make justice to this complex and beautiful couple. I didn't have a plan as I wrote this but I did have a drink and I hope it helped rather than betrayed me.  
> Also, this wouldn't even be a thing wasn't it mostly (meaning I can blame more of you, you know who you are) for Amanda, Steffi and Hina, whose crazy and beautiful prompts/headcanons I had the nerve to reflect on here. (You can actually see them made into an amazing edit right here: http://sirenja-and-the-stag.tumblr.com/post/139610762353/some-spacedogs-twitter-madness-about-nigel-buying)

Valentine's day is approaching. Fucking Valentine's day. Nigel hasn't bought shit for that occasion before but he wants to do it for Adam. The kid is different and he makes everything different as well. Even Nigel is different when he is with him. He becomes his best self, something no one else gets to see because only Adam has the fucking power to bring that out.

"It can't be that fucking difficult." Nigel tells himself as he's done putting on worn-out boots. "He likes fucking universe stuff, right? That's easy. I can find fucking stars for the kid." Then he considers a _what if_  for a second. "And in the fucking case I don't find them, I'll fucking jump up there tonight and kick the moon's ass until it shits fucking stars that I can put on the fucking beautiful hands of my darling. " He convinces the man in the mirror with a nod after his words and takes the door with sheer determination.

It's been nearly two hours and an entire mall. Two hours without smoking, two hours trying his best not to kick some fucking idiots in their mouth so they will stop looking at him like he's there to fucking steal any of the ugly shit they can't fucking seem to sell. Two fucking hours and his hands are empty. Nigel has no clue where he is when he goes through the nearest exist nor knows where the hell he will find any of that stuff Adam likes. He's not desperate, he's fucking livid.

He covers his face with his hands and slighty succeeds toning down the inhuman groan that comes from deep within his chest. Breathe in and breathe out as he tells himself he has the rest of the day and time is not the fucking problem. Adam's worth all his time and if once he has to spend all of his day walking the entire city -if not the fucking state- to find something for him, so fucking be it.

Nigel curses at his lighter for not working -intelligibly even to him- then smashes it against the ground and trambles on it before kicking the remainings out of his sight.

"And on the third fucking day, God removed all fucking stars from all fucking stores and put them on the fucking night sky to fucking piss me off." He blasphemes under his breathe as we keeps on walking, clueless as to where he's even going.

"Hey." Someone stops him just five steps later. Nigel cannot believe how shit his day is being and suppresses a guess about how many more fucking obstacles he's going to encounter today, just one day before the fucking date he's taken as a deadline. Now, in his way, there's a teenage girl and her friend who don't look a day over 15 and he regrets with all he has in him to have gotten out of bed for this he hears next. "Do you have a cigarette?"

"Right between my fucking lips as you see." He speaks still holding the filter. "Do you have a fucking lighter?" Nigel doesn't bother garnishing his answer or asking her age. He couldn't care less what those two get theirselves into. Whatever it is, they'll learn from it, like everyone else has.

He doesn't like teenagers. He doesn't like anyone at all and least of all today. While he thinks about this, the girl in question brings the backpack she hasn't carried to class today on the front. To look for the lighter, he supposes before he completely forgets about the cigarette in his mouth. It stays glued by his saliva to his bottom lip as both this and the upper one part, probably intensifying how stupid he already looks.

"Where the fuck did you get that?"

"The lighter?" She puckers her brows.

"The bag."

"It's a backpack."

Yes, with a galaxy pattern printed all over it.

"Whatever the fuck it is. Where did you fucking buy it?"

"I got it on Etsy. On internet." The teen side-eyes him, suspicious that he's high, as she brings out the lighter.

But Nigel doesn't fucking know how to buy things on internet. He tried but he didn't make it past the log in screen and now he doesn't have the fucking time to learn nor get stuff shipped in time.

"Do you know where I can find galaxy stuff? Like nebula shit and other stuff with fucking stars on them. Not corny yellow five-fucking-pointed stars but actual fucking stars that look fucking precisely like those above.

"Is that weed?" She goes for, instead.

"No. It's fucking not but I'll give you the entire fucking packet if you tell me where to find stuff like that. In a physical fucking store." He gives in, almost in despair as he starts to glimpse his faith all over again.

So he does. He gives up his time and now also his cigarettes for Adam fucking Raki, in hopes he can make that smile he loves so much appear on the kid's face.

For the entire package the teens even walk Nigel to the very door of the store while they smoke on their way the cigarettes that once and not long ago belonged to him. He doesn't mind. He'd die for Adam. He can go the day without smoking if that means tomorrow he'll have his fucking angel giggling and talking that lovely gibberish Nigel can't figure out about the fucking constellations he's put before those blue eyes.

 

"Sir?" The weird-looking bloke seeming to be the store manager approaches Nigel with a welcoming smile as the teens leave him standing in the middle of that sissy store. The unicorns, the hoodies with messages he doesn't get and all the gay shit surrounding him brings back a wisp of doubt and angst. "May I help you find the perfect gift for..." He regards the handmade journal with a nebula on its cover that Nigel has just grabbed with a groan of relief. "Ehr... for your daughter, I presume?

Nigel slowly turns his face to look at him. Words can't begin to describe the impact those ones have on him. His daughter? Honestly, his fucking _daughter_?

"For my fucking what?" His breathe hitches and he bets Adam would be proud of him for doing his best to keep himself from punching that jerk in the throat so he won't talk shit like that again. At least for as long as Nigel is in his fucking store. Tempting but, likes it or not, he needs his help and so he asks for it, in his characteristic way. "Do you have more of this? Hm?" He tilts his head, already having run out of the little patience he owns. "Stuff with fucking nebulas and galaxies." He doesn't wait long enough for the manager to answer before he lashes out again. "Fucking mother of Christ and the fucking stable that saw her give birth, how many fucking times must I ask this fucking question today to fucking morons like you so I can fucking get all this fucking money out of my fucking pockets to buy something my fucking sparrow will smile at? That's all I fucking want. How is it so fucking difficult?"

Nigel isn't sure at that point whether he's talking to himself or the owner of the place and closes his eyes, practicing the correct breathing patterns he has learned just to calm Adam down when he's going through one his nervous crisis.

"I'll take everything you have with fucking stars on it." He manages to conclude.

* * *

 

_Friday, 14th February_

"Wake up, gorgeous." Nigel nuzzles against one of Adam's soft ears, with a chuckle akin. He leaves a trail of wet but still clumsy kisses from there down to his shoulder, until he sees the kid shiver and his pale back hits Nigel's bare chest.

He slides a hand under the younger's body and surrounds him with both his arms, pulling him tight against him to the point he yields a sleepy sound coming from Adam's mouth. That alone causes Nigel's smile to widen as he buries his nose in his darling's curls. He can still smell the shampoo from Adam's daily 7 pm shower, the second shower of the day. He can smell a routine that has become part of his life and opens his eyes, grateful for waking up next to Adam one more morning.

"What time is it? My alarm hasn't gone off." Adam murmurs, still unable to keep his blinking eyes open as he looks for Nigel's fond ones with them.

"It's 7:45 am."

"We can sleep 15 minutes more." He says, closing his eyes as if they really had to do anything 15 minutes later for them to have to wake up exactly then. Not on Friday, not that one.

"I have a surprise." Nigel insists, pressing a kiss against warm forehead.

"It's not 8 am, I don't wake up before 8 am." Adam reminds him with just all the simpleness in the world. He doesn't mean he isn't excited or he doesn't care. He doesn't mean anything but what he just said, matter-of-factly.

"Adam, you're fucking awake." Nigel tells him, breath shortened by weak laughter between his words. "What does it fucking matter now? I have something for you. Can you wake up now for me, darling?"

"I am awake. I don't wake up for you, you woke me up." Nigel can _hear_ a soft frown in Adam's voice as he speaks. He can't see because the fucking kid has his lovely head rested on Nigel's chest. "But now I'm glad I'm awake because I can talk to you and I love talking to you. Also because I don't need to look at you when we talk and I like it like that. I like talking in bed. And everything else we do in bed. I like when you hug me and we talk and then you fall asleep again. Are you falling asleep?"

Nigel snorts, barely able to shake his head due to genuine amazement, which has him wonderstruck in the adoration he feels for that strange little prince of his.

"I'm fucking not, Adam. I want to show you what I have for you. It's a black hole."

Adam raises his head for Nigel to confirm a second frowning.

"You can't have a black hole in the living room." He explains, truly feeling he has to.

"Who said it's in the living room?" Nigel decides he can tease him a little more before he gets really confused.

"You always leave surprises in our living room, it makes sense that you would place this one there as well but you can't take a black hole in your hands and place it in our living room. You can't touch a black hole, Nigel!" Adam scoffs before incorporating in bed to, of course, proceed to explain why. "A black hole is a region of space with a gravitational field so intense that no matter or radiation can escape it. That is why they say everything disappears through a black hole, because it attracts everything towards it and if a black hole was in our living room, which is physically impossible, the entire house would have gone through it. The entire country and..."

"Maybe we are in a different dimension now." Nigel moistens his lips, truly enjoying this.

"No, we can't be because..." Adam's eyes are wide open, he's almost exalted trying to make Nigel understand when the latter interrupts him after controlling his low laughter.

"Get up and find out yourself."

"Nigel, there can't be a black hole in our living room. I'll explain it again but this time you have to listen, okay?"

Nigel nods, hardly able to conceal the amusement.

"A black hole has such properties that..."

"It's almost 8 am!" Nigel makes a sudden and quick move to sit in bed and starts tickling Adam until he can't speak anymore or do anything else but squirm and yell Nigel to stop.

He does but only to carry Adam, his legs wrapped around Nigel's waist, all the way to the living room. The quick but hungry kisses doesn't let him calculate his steps so he stumbles and both fall on the couch, giving raise to further chuckling and mild makeout before he's able to remove himself from atop Adam.

"See? It's a black hole." Nigel hands Adam a circular big enough black box as they sit beside each other, almost too close for air to run between them.

"Nigel, this is a box not a... Oh. Okay." He stops and smiles a little, unsure at first that he has understood the comparison. He smiles again and wider when he's sure he has.

"Open it. Let's see what it has attracted for my gorgeous." Nigel says, looking that closely at his angel and presses his lips against a pale bare shoulder.

He withdraws again, nervous to see in Adam's expression if he has gotten it right after being on the verge of going crazy for this less than 24 hours ago.

"It's a galaxy ashtray! I-I don't smoke." Adam reconsiders, still observing the picture in the bottom of the piece of glass he has just taken out of the box.

"I do. Can I smoke inside the appartment now?"

"No."

"But, darling, there are fucking stars on it."

"Yes, I love the stars on it." He soon remembers what he has to say next. He doesn't want to forget telling Nigel _that_ when he does things for him. "Thank you. But it will still smell if you smoke inside and if you stub out your cigarettes on this I won't see the stars anymore."

He doesn't say it in any particular way, he's simply making sense out of the situation, as he always does. Despite that, those neutral words spring in Nigel the saddest thought he's ever had. He remembers Adam telling him that some of the stars they see have already died and that, eventually, they won't see them anymore. One day the night sky will be almost completely dark and Nigel hasn't prayed in his entire life but he is in that very moment, that none of them live to experience that. To Nigel, all galaxies are captured in Adam's eyes, even those he doesn't know with names he can't retain long enough for him to repeat after his love mentions them. But everytime he's told Adam this, the kid insisted that wasn't possible. If the sky ever runs out of stars he will know where to look but if Adam can't see them when he looks in the mirror, then Nigel has to capture fucking galaxies for him to own when all lights in the sky fade out.

"God fucking forbid I ever keep my angel from fucking seeing the stars he loves so much." He ends up saying, eyes too fixed on Adam to realize what he's holding until a joyful laugh wakes him up from the trance.

"These look like nebulas!" He points out, overly excited, putting more of those jars than he can hold in front of Nigel's eyesight. "What are these, Nigel? How did they do this?"

They're really just that. Five of medium-sized jars of different colours each, filled with compounds Nigel doesn't acknowledge at all. Yet, somehow, someone smart enough has managed to make it look like fucking realistic galaxies are trapped inside them. There's the stardust and there's glitter that looks like stars. Then there are those shaky hands wary to not agitate them so he can always preserve them like that. Nigel wants to kiss them, but he wants to let the kid have his field day. He doesn't want to interrupt him, deviate or make a change in his excitement. He's getting all he ever needed just by seeing Adam chuckle at the items he brings out of that fucking box.

"I put them in there for my darling." Nigel can't help but passing his fingers through the curly hair as his lips become a tight line. "Because you deserve the fucking universe and I will put it in your hands every time you ask me to."

Adam leans towards Nigel, who surrounds his shoulders with a protective arm before rocking him a little as he gets to drop kisses in his temple.

He brings out the journal, a necklace that he opens in half to discover the solar system before his eyes, a case for his pillow... At a certain point Nigel stops counting the presents to only stare at that gorgeous smile and the hoody eyes it forces. He has even forgotten what he's bought for him. Anything and everything he found with stars on it because Adam is obsessed with them and Nigel is obsessed with Adam's hapiness.

"I-I love it. I love everything you put in this box. I knew you couldn't place a black hole in the living room but I still love this suprise." He laughs softly. "Thank you. This made me smile a lot and I... I have something for you too."

"You do?"

"Yes." He looks at Nigel's forehead then at his eyes and then his sight goes down as he chuckles all over again.

"Why?"

"Because it's Valentine's day. I have Asperger's, not a bad memory. I know what day is today." He actually jokes and he loves to as he doesn't ever fail to make Nigel smirk at the blunt things he says. "I know you're going to keep on smoking because you love to so I got you two things and just one is to compensate for your bad habit, okay?"

Nigel only blinks for a while before he realizes to nod. He's dying to know what Adam fucking Raki thought he should get him for that day. When he finds out... he really doesn't.

"What is this?" Nigels twists and turns something looking like an orange-dachshund keychain. "It's a...?"

"It's both a lighter and a keychain. It matches the dogs on your favourite shirt so I thought you would like this one too."

Nigel scoffs, shaking his head to the sides.

"You don't like it?"

Nigel grabs Adam by his waist and pulls him towards himself so he will sit again, this time on his lap. How can he put in words how much he appreciates his little gift? Or anything he does, for that matter.

"This is fucking cool, Adam. I don't like it, I fucking love it. And you will not believe but I smashed my favourite lighter yesterday so this is a fucking blessing, gorgeous."

"Oh. Are you going to smash this one too?"

"What? No, no." Nigel buries his face in his darling's neck to laugh comfortably. His breathe makes him flinch a little and he kisses his skin to compensate for that. "I smashed it because it stopped working. You're my fucking guardian angel."

"I'm not, I'm just a human being." He says back, placing his arms around Nigel's neck.

"A fucking perfect human being and don't fucking say you aren't. We've discussed this already, darling."

Adam's only answer is a soft laugh in Nigel's ear.

"I'm happy that you liked it. I have something better."

"That compensates for my bad habits."

"Yes."

Adam gets up again to bring Nigel a plastic sheet protector with some papers on it that he apparently will need to read.

"These are fucking train tickets for the afternoon. To the fucking countryside?"

"Yes." Adam stands instead of sitting again. He wants to allow Nigel to read properly.

"You have fucking booked a fucking cabin?" He looks up from the papers he's shifting from one hand to the other, open-mouthed.

"It's a cottage." He corrects. Cabin doesn't sound good enough to him.

"Whatever the fuck. For two fucking nights?"

"I know you love cigarettes but I don't like that you smoke. I'm not going to ask you to quit it because you like it and it makes you happy. I'm happy when you are happy. So I-I know you enjoy smoking but it's bad for your health. The air is very polluted here already and I don't want you to get sick. I can take care of you if you get sick. I took care of my father but I don't want you to die like him. I want you to be alive and healthy because I... I wouldn't like my life without you. I would hate it. I would cry and scream if I lost you so I... I need you to be healthy and breathe fresh air for some days. I don't like taking trips -you know that- but I want you to breathe fresh air and clean your lungs because I need you to be healthy. And... And I... I need that because... I love you."

Adam has gotten taut at the thoughts that his own words bring. Nigel tosses the papers to a side and gets up to hold tightly in his arms what he will always consider his fucking guardian angel.

"Adam, are you listening? I want you to listen to me and pay attention and remember my fucking words." Nigel sighs with his eyes closed and chin over Adam's shoulder.

"I am. I'm listening and I will try to remember." He says but doesn't hug him back. He's still tense and needs to be held tighter for a while longer.

"Don't try, Adam. Fucking memorize them. No. Forget that, I'm sorry." He takes it back. If he tells Adam to memorize something he literally will. That isn't what he wants him to do. "I just I want you to fucking believe in my words, angel. Can you do that for me? Fucking believe what I'm going to tell you?"

"Yes. But I don't know if you are angry and I don't want you to be angry." He begins to stutter and repeat himself. "I don't know if I made you angry because I said the cigarettes you love can kill you. I don't want you to be angry."

"Adam, stop." Nigel brings Adam on the couch with him. He lets him curl up in a ball between his arms and makes his embrace as intense as he can before he will actually hurt him. He has learn that sort of pressure around his body actually calms him down. "Listen to me now. I'm not angry. I'm... I'm not. I fucking love you so much, Adam, you don't fucking unders- you don't imagine how much I love you, angel." He rephrases that before he says anything that will make him feel even more anxious. He bucks his head to press his forehead against Adam's face, he doesn't care exactly where as long as their skin touch. "I'm not going to get sick. I promise to you, gorgeous, that I will fucking do my best to keep myself healthy... Healthier. I'm not going to leave you. You won't need to take care of me if I can fucking prevent that. I am the one who's fucking here to take care of you and I always will. Remember those fucking words, Adam. You don't use your lovely head to think about ugly things like that again, yes? You don't fucking use your brilliant mind to worry about that because I'm here to take care of everything. Of us. I promise this to you, Adam. Do you believe me, angel? Say once that you fucking do and that's all I'll ever need to keep my fucking promise.

Nigel pulls away a little to check how's Adam doing. He has already noticed his muscles slacken between in arms but he needs to see with his eyes that the kid is indeed alright now. He's breathing deeply, he's at peace and his arms finally embrace Nigel's body back.

"I... I believe you. You never lie to me, even when that means telling me things I don't like to hear."

"That's it. Good, gorgeous. Have you packed your bags?" Nigel decides it was best to change the subject.

"No. I didn't want you to see them. It was a surprise."

"Let's have breakfast and then we go pack, yes? Our train is in some hours." Nigel skims Adam's cheeks with the back of his fingers trying not to think about how his gifts pale beside Adam's. "You didn't have to make me any present, gorgeous. You're the biggest fucking present life has ever made to me."


End file.
